MORGANTOWN - Jarrett Brown has gotten plenty of opportunities to fool around as West Virginia's part-time quarterback in special situations the past two games. Today he will likely get the chance to show what he can do in a full-time role.

Coach Bill Stewart said Friday that Brown will probably start in place of Pat White when the Mountaineers (3-2, 1-0 Big East) play host to Syracuse (1-4, 0-1) in WVU's homecoming game at Mountaineer Field.

White suffered a head injury in last week's 24-17 win over Rutgers and tried to practice this week, but never really did. Stewart said that by the time the Mountaineers had ended their week's practice on Thursday that Brown was the likely starter.

"It really doesn't seem that bad, but we just don't want to jar it around,'' Stewart said. "And there are times when he says he just doesn't feel right.''

The only day White practiced this week was Tuesday, the team's hardest full-contact workout of the week. But he never made it to the contact work.

"He practiced Tuesday, did all the individual [drills] and then his head started hurting, so we kept him out of the team stuff,'' Stewart said.

Assuming Brown starts, it would be the second of his career. The redshirt junior also replaced an injured White at the last moment in the final regular-season game of the 2006 season. White was ruled out of that game just hours before kickoff and Brown guided West Virginia's 41-39, three-overtime victory over Rutgers.

In the year and a half since that start, Brown has filled in for an injured White a few other times - most notably last season against South Florida, Syracuse and Pitt when White was knocked out of games because of injuries to a hip and a thumb.

MORGANTOWN - Jarrett Brown has gotten plenty of opportunities to fool around as West Virginia's part-time quarterback in special situations the past two games. Today he will likely get the chance to show what he can do in a full-time role.

Coach Bill Stewart said Friday that Brown will probably start in place of Pat White when the Mountaineers (3-2, 1-0 Big East) play host to Syracuse (1-4, 0-1) in WVU's homecoming game at Mountaineer Field.

White suffered a head injury in last week's 24-17 win over Rutgers and tried to practice this week, but never really did. Stewart said that by the time the Mountaineers had ended their week's practice on Thursday that Brown was the likely starter.

"It really doesn't seem that bad, but we just don't want to jar it around,'' Stewart said. "And there are times when he says he just doesn't feel right.''

The only day White practiced this week was Tuesday, the team's hardest full-contact workout of the week. But he never made it to the contact work.

"He practiced Tuesday, did all the individual [drills] and then his head started hurting, so we kept him out of the team stuff,'' Stewart said.

Assuming Brown starts, it would be the second of his career. The redshirt junior also replaced an injured White at the last moment in the final regular-season game of the 2006 season. White was ruled out of that game just hours before kickoff and Brown guided West Virginia's 41-39, three-overtime victory over Rutgers.

In the year and a half since that start, Brown has filled in for an injured White a few other times - most notably last season against South Florida, Syracuse and Pitt when White was knocked out of games because of injuries to a hip and a thumb.

In each of those instances, Brown was forced into action without much warning and without having played much at all in previous games. This time is different. Brown has become an integral part of West Virginia's offense the past two games, taking snaps at quarterback with White also on the field and occasionally lining up as a running back or a slot receiver.

Brown also finished the Mountaineers' last two games against Marshall and Rutgers after White re-injured a thumb in the third quarter against the Herd and then suffered the head injury in the third quarter of the Rutgers game.

"Jarrett will do fine,'' Stewart said. "It's not like he's coming in cold. We've made him a part of the offense. Now, if Pat doesn't play, he'll just have to be a bigger part.''

Aside from merely losing the two-time Big East offensive player of the year, White's absence might also force the Mountaineers to scrap some of the Brown package they have used the past two games. He can still, obviously, run some of the short-yardage plays he ran against Rutgers, but the chance of having two quarterbacks on the field at the same time is reduced. Still, third-string quarterback Bradley Starks might see some action in that role, or the Mountaineers could also line up one of their other skill players to take snaps in the backfield and allow Brown to line up elsewhere.

Quarterbacks aside, West Virginia still goes into the game as a prohibitive favorite. Syracuse has won only two Big East games in the past 31/2 years and is more than a three-touchdown underdog today. Still, the Orange players have not given up on the season and, in fact, one of them even managed to provide some bulletin board material this week.

"Yeah, clearly they're beatable,'' said SU senior safety Bruce Williams. "They're not even ranked in the Top 25.''

It's hard to argue with Williams' assessment given that the Mountaineers aren't in the Top 25, aren't even receiving any votes in the two major polls and have been beaten twice by a pair of now-unranked teams, East Carolina and Colorado. Still, don't believe for a moment that Williams' comments won't find a prominent place in West Virginia's locker room today.

"Colorado beat West Virginia and they were supposed to lose by a couple of touchdowns,'' Williams said. "So I don't pay attention to [point spreads] and we believe we're going to go out there and win.''